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OPINION

GOP can't win with gripes and gloom

Michael Medved
Published 1:28 p.m. CT June 10, 2016

A woman holds "Make America Great Again" hats to get them autographed by Donald Trump during a rally June 2 in San Jose, Calif.(Photo: AP)

Is American greatness a relic of the past or a reality of the present?

If Republicans fumble this fundamental question and become the party of gripes and gloom, they will blow their chance of 2016 victory and imperil the party’s long-term survival. The American people might feel deeply dissatisfied with governmental gridlock and political corruption, but they remain surprisingly positive about their personal circumstances.

Why, then, do pundits prattle so persistently about the seething rage of the electorate, and how did anger-candidate Donald Trump decisively defeat his innumerable GOP rivals? News media messages certainly shaped the outcome: TV journalists don’t function as a news business; they’re part of the bad news business. Crime, natural disasters and dire predictions make for more riveting broadcasts than reports on happy families and functional schools. In the same way, the boisterous indignation of the Trump campaign dominated the media menu with the candidate’s impassioned laments over national decline; the presumptive nominee drew far more news time than his 16 Republican opponents combined.

Despite prevailing alarmism about the sorry state of the country at large, polls find stubborn optimism on the more intimate level. In January, Gallup found only 23 percent who approved of “the way things are going” in the nation in general, but near record numbers (85 percent) said they were satisfied with “the way things are going in (their) personal (lives)”; an amazing 53 percent described themselves as “very satisfied.” In this context, catering to the scant 6 percent who see themselves as “very dissatisfied” with their lot will make it difficult to build a majority.

It’s the GOP’s sour mood, even more than the polarizing personality of Trump, that separates the party from the instinctive optimism that’s part of the national character. A March survey by Pew Research found 70 percent of self-described “conservative Republicans” who agreed with the statement: “Compared with 50 years ago, life in America today for people like (me) is worse.”

As a matter of fact, 50 years ago crime rates were rising with dramatic intensity, devastating urban riots paralyzed cities across the country, and the Vietnam War brought 529 monthly combat deaths on average in 1966. Since that time, every measure of human welfare has shown dramatic improvement. Vastly enhanced medical care means life expectancy has increased from 70 years to 79 years, with especially potent improvements for people of color. Median income, adjusted for inflation, has increased by one third, with greatly improved purchasing power. Opportunities to pursue higher education have improved to a startling degree: more than 30 percent of adults now hold bachelor's degrees, compared with fewer than 10 percent a half-century ago.

In what sense, then, has life become “worse” over intervening decades?

Among African Americans, an overwhelming 83 percent in the Pew survey reject that notion of decline — with black people participating in unprecedented progress by the nation’s most consistently oppressed minority. Among voters younger than 30, a mere 27 percent accepted the idea that life has gotten worse for “people like (me).”

To connect with the younger, more diverse segments of the electorate who are utterly essential to the party’s future, Republicans must jettison their self-pitying worldview more urgently than they alter any policy prescriptions

Such a shift requires abandonment of the self-defeating demonization of President Obama, along with accusations that he has engaged in a malevolent, eight-year kamikaze mission to deliberately damage the United States. Republicans should rightly fault his presidency as inept and misguided, but it makes no sense to focus their attacks on an incumbent with rising, respectable approval ratings while both of his potential successors remain distinctly less popular.

Most Americans understand that their nation remains the envy of the world despite an often unworthy government, not because of it. A promise to “Make America Great Again” may play to a nostalgic sense of loss among the most disgruntled element of the electorate, but a commitment to make America even greater than it already is will work better in broadening the base.

A mere eight years ago, Obama won a mighty landslide by promoting “hope and change.” Despite considerable disappointment with his performance in office, Trump's true believers can’t succeed in November by replacing hope and change with mope and cringe.